


long live the weeds and the wilderness yet

by Tybss



Category: Far Cry 5, Far Cry: New Dawn
Genre: F/F, Far Cry 5 Fanzine, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, POV First Person, Reminiscing, Written like a Tracey's Travels note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25015765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tybss/pseuds/Tybss
Summary: At orientation, they’d told us we’d probably die young.Years after the world changed forever, Tracey Lader reminisces about her stint at Breakthough Camp for Troubled Young People... and the silver-tongued girl who’d lain down in the grass beside her.
Relationships: Tracey Lader/Faith Seed
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14
Collections: Far Cry Fanzine 2020





	long live the weeds and the wilderness yet

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for the Far Cry 5 fanzine, which can be downloaded for free! It was a pleasure to work with everybody on this project, and I especially had a lot of fun making all the titles, character prepper stash gems and trigger warning graphics for all of the fics :D
> 
> This is also the first Far Cry 5 fic I've ever written so I'm very nervous to be posting this...
> 
> A massive thank you to farcrying for her beautiful illustration in the zine and to unclefungusthegoat for putting this project together!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @ lucy-and-loki.

At orientation, they’d told us we’d probably die young.

The folks at Breakthrough Camp never were ones to mince their words. Apparently, we’d needed the harsh truths of life, if we were ever to get ourselves back on the ‘right path’. Needed to come together as ‘troubled young people’, to ensure we went on to lead long, productive and righteous lives.

Rachel and I... to the rest of the world, we were the definition of troubled. And that had made them all the more desperate to detox even the slightest hint of rebellion from us.

Two weeks into our ‘rehabilitation’, they’d tried to get us to make _flower_ _chains_. 

Supposedly it ‘grounded us in nature’. Made us appreciate the world for all of its beauty, so we wouldn’t drug ourselves into a stupor just to escape it. 

Of course, we hadn’t seen it like that. There seemed something pretty messed up about making your own shackles, especially when you were trapped in some watered down, saccharine version of juvie. We ditched them first chance we got. Ended up sprawled on the recreation field instead. Out of earshot and away from the disappointed gazes of the camp leaders. 

Rachel had lain quietly in the long grass, unconcerned about getting stains on her back. I had sat beside her, hood up, resolutely ignoring the beads of sweat forming at my hairline.

“I hate flowers.”

Her voice had been soft, but her words had been sharply punctuated by the dirt she’d torn up from the ground and tossed aside. I hadn’t been surprised. Not when she’d told me her parents spent more time locked in their greenhouses, tending to their orchids, than they did tending to their child. 

She’d even sworn to me once that her parents tested out their floral medicines _on her_.

I could never quite work out if she was telling the truth.

Something about this statement had rung false too.

“What the fuck’s that then?”

I had pointed back towards our cabin. Atop the window sill, bathed in hot summer sunlight, had sat a potted flower. Other than her clothes, it was the only thing Rachel had brought with her from home.

She’d looked me right in the eyes.

“A moonflower. It’s a _weed_.” As if I could tell the difference. A small, sad smile had crept onto her face. “Unwanted and unloved...like us.”

And poisonous, as I would come to realise.

Weeks later, we had left the camp more determined than ever to live the way we wanted to. Like weeds, we would stubbornly root ourselves into the earth, track marks on our arms and pure bliss in our bloodstreams. It was us against the world. Blocking out the ticking clock of mortality, and embracing the short lives we knew we’d been saddled with.

Rachel had said she would follow me anywhere. And follow she did; to California and back, and through the tall, iron gates of Eden.

Until one day, she didn’t.

I escaped from the jaws of Hell before it all really went to shit. Turned my back on the destructive promises Rachel and I had made to one another. Somehow found my way to a path that looked vaguely like the one they’d told us about at Breakthrough Camp all those years ago. I remember thinking the camp leaders would’ve been proud. Especially when I’d stood side by side with them, gun in my hand, fighting for the world they believed in. 

In my own way, I had blossomed.

But Rachel...Rachel embraced her nature. On the outside - barefoot, and in bridal-white lace - she was as beautiful as I had ever seen her. When she spoke, I could almost hear the same girl I’d known for so long. Gentle and naive, preaching of _peace_. But, in truth, she had thrived; worming into places she wasn’t wanted, spreading like nettle rash on skin. Burying herself into the minds of people who’d once treated her like trash.

They called her the Father’s faithful flower girl. Finally needed. Finally loved. She’d even worn pink petals on her dress. Made me wonder whether I’d ever truly known her at all.

Clearly she hadn’t known me. Not if she’d gone looking for love, when it was there - hood up and reclined in the long grass - beside her all along.

Years later, and far from Hope County, I would sit and stare out of my cabin window. Savouring the quiet; thinking about how fucked up the world had truly become. Still amazed that, somehow, I had lasted long enough to witness the dawn of a new era.

I left everything behind when I finally decided to break free. Left the ruins of my house, my car, and what remained of Fall’s End. I even scattered my old photo collection around for people to find. Pieces of not-so-buried treasure, to remind everyone of how it once was. To show them the harsh truths of the new world, so they would begin to find their way back to better paths.

I left everything. 

Everything except my worn comfy hoodie, one of Virgil’s buttons, now rusty and faded...and a rare moonflower, that sat on my window sill in a shell-shattered pot.

Withered, browning, and abandoned to wilt in the blazing sunshine, far before it’s time.


End file.
